Past Events

Shake! is back with another two floor, complete takeover of Good Life for our 3rd anniversary party! We’ll have both floors locked down all night with a special collection of headliners brought to us by none other than MikeQ and his label Qween Beat, joined by some of the best selectors and curators in Boston. Qween Beat represents the leading edge of ballroom and vogue tilted club sounds, worldwide, and keeping with this spirit of all things #werk, we’ve invited some of Boston’s best talent in to round out the night.

We’re excited to mark three years of Shake! With this incredible line-up, and we’d like to give special thanks to all of you who have come out to our parties, and a very special thank you to all of our previous guests:

LOEFAH (Swamp81 | UK)

Loefah is a DJ and producer who needs little introduction. Working with the DMZ crew, Loefah helped to establish the very foundations of the dubstep genre, while putting out some of the most seminal and important releases of the movement. Lately they have blossomed into one of the champions of the wider UK Bass sound, establishing the famous Swamp81 outfit, while continuing to set the standard for all things bassweight. It goes without saying that we are truly humbled to have a legend such as Loefah join us, whose career has had such an indelible impact on the Shake! sound.

HODGE (Livity Sound | UK)

Considered one of the strongest elements of the reborn Bristol bass and techno scene, Hodge stands as part of the new vanguard of the future of UK Bass music. With releases on his current home Livity Sound, as well as output Hemlock and Punch Drunk, he has been responsible for some of the biggest releases out of the UK in recent memory. With an ability to produce sensitive nuanced tracks, as well as certified big room anthems, his diversity as a producer reflects that of the larger UK scene, all while retaining a sound uniquely his own. We are delighted to have Hodge join us for his Boston debut performance.

LYCHEE (Visceral | Boston)

Responsible for arguably the most forward thinking and pioneering underground party in the Boston scene with their sidekick Manu Miran, Lychee has been working tirelessly for years to improve the Boston underground music scene. With a pointed perspective for techno tilted sounds, they have made a name for themselves as a critical player with discerning tastes, one worthy of the highest accolades for this city. A long time contributor to the Shake! team, we warmly welcome Lychee to the booth to guide us into sonic bliss.

UMFANG (Discwoman / Brooklyn)

Umfang (Emma Olsen) is a DJ, producer, Discwoman co-founder and serious lover of techno. As one of the key figures of Technofeminism in Brooklyn, and more recently on the broader international stage at techno mainstays such as Dekmantel, Berghain, Sustain-Release and more, she has been delivering blistering sets of pure, minimal, straight ahead techno that has become her signature style. Umfang has also been instrumental in the core mission of Discwoman, helping to bring more representative line ups to electronic dance music, and giving a platform to female and non-binary producers and DJs on a global level. We are very excited to invite her to Shake for her Goodlife debut.

DJ LAG (Gqom King / Durban)

Making his Boston debut, DJ Lag (Lwazi Asanda Gwala) is one of the leading pioneers of the GQOM genre, a bass heavy, minimalist sound out of Durban, South Africa that has been steadily gaining popularity over the past few years. With it’s rise to popularity has been the rise of DJ Lag himself, playing around Europe and Asia, featuring appearances on the Boiler Room Johannesburg show, at Poland’s Unsound Festival, and playing at Cake Shop in South Korea, all by the age of 21. The distinct textural palate and rhythmic patterns from DJ Lag and fellow contemporaries such as Rudeboyz has become a favorite at Shake!, and we are excited to introduce DJ Lag to Boston for a very rare appearance.

DRAW (Boston)

One of our favorite local parties, Draw often emerges to bring us some of the best underground parties in the city, featuring artists as Swing Ting, Murlo, Total Freedom, Mumdance, and more, all of whom represent producers and DJs beloved by Shake. We are excited to have three of their core residents help warm up the booth for some of our most exciting guests to date.

Shake! is teaming up with London/NYC record label and club night Lit City Trax to bring you our biggest party yet, for a special two floor takeover of Good Life on August 11.

Ghetto house legend DJ Deeon, Lit City Trax boss and Rinse.FM fixture J-Cush, MC/producer fresh off of his Turner Ave album release Blay Vision, and Jersey Club stalwart of Brick Bandits fame DJ TiGa join us alongside a whole host of local collectives representing some of Boston’s most cutting edge club sounds.

DRE SKULL (Mixpak | Brooklyn)

As the founder of Mixpak Records in 2009, Dre Skull has overseen the release of some of the most monumental dancehall releases of recent years, from artists like Popcaan, Vybz Kartel, Spice, Beenie Man, and more. He is a well-known producer, often times branching out of the dancehall sound, producing for artists like Beenie Man, and for also bringing artists outside of the dancehall community towards the jamaican sound, most notably co-producing the Snoop Lion project with Major Lazer for Snoop Dogg. Expect a wide reaching mix of selections from this legendary producer, who admits himself “For whatever reason, I’m most fascinated with pop music”, listing Miguel and 2 Chainz as recent inspirations. One of the Mixpak label’s standout contributors is our other featured guest for the evening…

JUBILEE (Mixpak | Brooklyn, Miami)

While Mixpak is undoubtedly responsible for releasing some of the biggest names in dancehall in recent memory, they also have been turning out a steady stream of forward thinking, bass heavy club music that often touches on, and in turn inspires, the dancehall sound. Jubilee represents one of those artists who have helped establish that signature sound, along with contemporaries such as Dubbel Dutch, Murlo, and others. Hailing from Miami, her DJ style mimics the link between the early origins of hip hop and dancehall culture. Miami bass mixed with Jersey club, meets grime and other bass forward styles, she knows how to keep a party at attention and pumping.

KINGDOM (Fade to Mind, LA)

For the better part of the last decade, Kingdom — Los Angeles-based producer and DJ Ezra Rubin — has been a key figure in club music’s revision of sonic and social norms, a generational update on dance-floor freedom that’s also had an affect on the aesthetics of R&B. Known for some of the most groundbreaking club singles and EPs of the last decade, including releases on Night Slugs, as well as their own label Fade to Mind. Kingdom is hot off the release of their first full length album release, Tears in the Club, giving us a masterpiece that transcends beyond the dancefloor and gives us fruits of their unique, wide production breadth. Returning to Boston for the first time in years, we are humbled to present this incredible artist alongside another unique and iconic voice…

MIKE Q (Fade to Mind, Qween Beat, NJ)

Mike Q has been a leading figure in the ballroom sound and has been synonymous with the modern resurrection of the artform for the last decade and beyond. They have been a leading figure in championing ballroom’s allure—and its commercial viability, carrying the legacy of producers like Vjuan Allure, who brought the music into forefront with reworks of classics like The Ha Dance from Masters at Work (The Allure Ha). He’s toured cities where local ballroom scenes are sprouting up, like Tokyo, Moscow, Paris, Mexico, and Seoul. He’s invaded living rooms across the globe with his live-streamed Boiler Room sets, and seduced the heads by linking up with the Fade to Mind label and GHE20G0TH1K party—both bulwarks of the experimental avant-garde.

MA (Nguzunguzu / Fade to Mind, LA)

In 10 years as a musician, Asma Maroof has released five EPs with Daniel Pineda as Nguzunguzu, spent two years as M.I.A.’s touring DJ, and released a self-titled album with three other musicians as Future Brown. She has helped lead the charge in developing the now iconic dark, bass driven R&B tinged club sound that the whole Fade to Mind label has become known for, often called “party music with a brutalist edge”. The first release for the label was the Timesup EP, and quickly set the pace for what would follow. We are delighted to have her join us for an all-star line up that will set the bar even higher for our humble basement party home.

JOEY BELTRAM (DRUMCODE, BUSH, 1605, R&S, WARP / NYC)

For over the last 20+ years, Joey Beltram is considered one of the pioneers and a legendary producer of Techno and House. He has recorded on many of the biggest labels of the early 90’s such as Nu-Groove, Tresor, Warp, Transmat, and R&S records. Much of his music during that time is widely acknowledged as groundbreaking. Beltram has also been heralded as a major influence by many of today’s DJ’s and producers including Daft Punk (as mentioned in their song “Teachers”). He has also produced many Techno staples of the 1990’s including “Energy Flash”, “Mentasm”, “Forklift”, “Ballpark” and “Game Form”. In more recent years Joey Beltram has worked with and remixed artist’s and DJ’s such as Adam Beyer, Carl Cox, Umek, Oliver Huntemann and Steve Lawler.

SHY EYEZ (NOODS RADIO / NYC)

Between her bi-weekly happy hours at Bossa and her monthly residency at Bristol’s Noods Radio, Shy Eyez is in the booth more often than not. Recent gigs include Discwoman, Confused House and GROOVY GROOVY, with appearances on the Lot Radio and WNYU as well as a guest mix for Berceuse Heroique. Drawing continual inspiration from the many DJs she makes a point of seeing behind the decks, as well as the numerous radio shows she religiously follows, her DJ sets span countless genres—from techno to breakbeat to experimental U.K. dubstep and beyond. In addition to DJing, she recently ventured into booking dnb/bass/breaks/non-4-2-the-floor-techno talent for her party series, BreakZ—which has already hosted sets from Matrixxman, Dieselboy and Batu.

DUBBEL DUTCH (RARE EARTH TONES, MIXPAK)

For several years, Brooklyn-based producer Dubbel Dutch (a.k.a Marc Glasser) has acted as a harbinger for American club music, often steps ahead of his peers in discovering and defining the proverbial next sound. As both a producer and DJ, Glasser has shown a willingness to study, reinterpret and re-contextualize disparate sounds, transfixing his skills on a grab bag of genres, ranging from euphoric dancehall to triumphant grime with brief stops to experiment with UK funky, kuduro and Jersey club. A contemporary club shaman, Dubbel Dutch’s aim is to inspire transcendence with his ‘cosmic tone poems and club anthems from the abyss’.

All in all, Dubbel Dutch has situated himself neatly at the cross-roads of forward-thinking club music, Jamaican dancehall culture, and American pop music consciousness. With a massive, still bubbling single, an extended portfolio of euphoric solo material, and a growing stockpile of club munitions, the coming years look bright for this dance music polyglot.

DOCTOR JEEP (CHAOS CLAN, TUBA, TROUBLE & BASS)

Doctor Jeep is a 26-year old New York native known to most as Andre Lira. While attending college in Boston he quickly gained notoriety as one of the city’s most eclectic young selectors, blending upbeat house and techno with the global sounds of baile funk, dancehall, uk garage, drum & bass and more. With DJ sets mixing the past, present, and future of dance music in some of America’s best clubs, and festival appearances at Outlook, Bass Coast, Bonnaroo, and EDC, he has proven to adapt to any vibe and make it his own style of party.

Production-wise, Jeep’s music has been described as “a style somewhere between the tropical inclinations of Dutty Artz, the grinding 808 electro of Swamp81, and the breakbeat-heavy sound of 90′s UK rave music.” With releases on a wide range of international labels such as NYC’s Trouble & Bass (R.I.P.), Nottingham’s Tumble Audio, and Lisbon’s Enchufada, and support from tastemaking DJs such as Claude VonStroke, Eats Everything, Shy FX, B.Traits, Hannah Wants, Addison Groove, and My Nu Leng to name a few, the future looks bright for this young producer.

This month at Shake!, we have UK heavyweights Randomer and Batu, joined by our own Dev/Null. Randomer’s discography reads like a who’s who of modern techno: across a six year career, he’s produced four EPs for Untold’s Hemlock Recordings; released records for Hessle Audio, Numbers and Clone; and most recently, for Ron Morelli’s L.I.E.S. As a DJ, he’s one of the UK’s finest, capable of effortlessly stitching together modern bass with classic techno and less esoteric 4/4 rhythms.

Coming out of Bristol, Batu stands at the forefront of a rising new order in UK techno. Alongside fellow Bristol artists Hodge, Facta, Lurka, Ploy, Bruce and Asusu, London-based Beneath and Manchester’s Alex Coulton, the 22 year old is a key figure in an inventive crop of young producers making a low-end, broken and forceful style of underground dance music that’s tailor made for the sound-systems of warehouses and basements.

Shake! returns with a line-up that we are positive will satisfy your wait. We are proud to welcome back Night Slugs legend and quintessential RinseFM DJ, Bok Bok, joined by the prolific Egyptrixx, for his Shake! debut, with resident Fens getting the subwoofers nice and hot…

BOK BOK (Night Slugs)

Label head and founder of the seminal Night Slugs label, Bok Bok (Alex Sushon) draws from a creative pool that has launched some of the best club material of all time. Started in the MySpace era with co-founder L-Vis 1990, Night Slugs has been delivering ground breaking sounds and hosting legendary club nights way before many of his contemporaries. The hallmark of Bok Bok’s career is to curate and foster emerging genres. His ability to transcend music, sounds, and definition, while staying true to his grime and bass heavy roots, has set him and the Night Slugs crew apart by a wide margin. Often imitated, but rarely bested, he has released on some of the best labels around, from Sound Pellegrino, Monkeytown, Brainfeeder, Mixpak, and countless others, yet his true legacy lies with Night Slugs, which brings us to our next esteemed guest…

EGYPTRIXX (Night Slugs / Halocline Trance)

Following his debut LP Bible Eyes, Egyptrixx (David Psutka) has been busy developing a unique, and wide breadth of material under a number of different projects including of course Egyptrixx, but also collaborations such as Hiawatha (currently with Cameron Gilpin), a multimedia collaboration with German visual artist ANF for his second album A/B til Infinity, and is a member of experimental folk project Anamai, underscoring his more experimental approach to electronic music that transcends both the club and other realms. More recently, Egyptrixx paired up with Night Slugs label mate L-Vis 1990 for their project Limit, which demonstrates a more club oriented and driven production style, released under Egyptrixx’s own label, Halocline Trace.

FENS (Shake!)

Since he first took to DJing in 2008, local Fens (Matt Rohr) has carved his way through Boston through countless storied club nights and parties. From his early beginnings with Banana Peel Records, where his collaborations with CreateSpace Collab helped launch the Good Life staple, Sweet Shop, to his involvement with the JASS crew, which helped bring several groundbreaking, and now much sought after producers to town for their first Boston performances, Fens has always placed an emphasis on new and fresh, which brings him to his involvement with Shake, where he continues to help bring Boston the best in dance music. Hosting a weekly mix show on local station 90.3FM WZBC, he has been delivering well crafted selections from a wide variety of backgrounds, and you can always expect quality, and diversity, both known and otherwise.